A few years back I read Lesslie Newbigin’s little book Truth and Authority in Modernity (Trinity Press, 1996). I was particularly impressed with his argument in chapter 2 “The Mediation of Divine Authority.” Now, maybe this is old hat to many of you, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put quite this way. The question concerns the kind of authority that modern people demand as justification for religious truth.
First, he asks about the intention of Jesus for the future of the Church, specifically the mediation of his authority to future generations. He identifies three important indications of Jesus’ intention: 1) He chose, called, and prepared a company of people to mediate his authority; 2) to them he entrusted his teaching; and 3) he promised them the gift of the Spirit to guide them in matters that were beyond their present horizons.
Second, after briefly explaining these three aspects of authoritative mediation, Newbigin makes a very insightful argument. I shall quote the relevant paragraph in its entirety:
At the risk of becoming merely speculative, it is worth pausing for a moment at this point to ask whether there is any other way in which divine authority could be mediated to human beings. There would only seem to be two possibilities. One would be that God should make his authority known directly to every individual conscience without intervention of any other human agency. But this suggestion is absurd, for no human being develops either reason or conscience except through participating in the intercourse of a human community, family, society, culture. Because no human experience is totally private, divine revelation could not be totally private.The other possibility is that divine revelation should be a matter of public history. In that case it can be only in events that are limited to a particular time, place, culture. But the whole ongoing course of human history cannot be frozen forever at a particular point. Revelation takes place only if (as has been argued above) it is internalized, made part of a living human consciousness that must necessarily be the consciousness of a human being living in a particular time, place, and culture.
It is therefore hard to imagine how there could be any other divine revelation authoritative for the whole of human history except one that embraced the three elements we have noted above: a living community, a tradition of teaching, and the continuing work of the divine Spirit illuminating the tradition in each new generation and each new situation, so that it becomes the living speech of God for that time, place, and culture (pp. 30-31).
Now, lest anyone complain that this leaves no place for an infallible Bible, we should remember that the very origin and preservation (copying, translating, etc.) of Scripture depends upon the three realities described by Newbigin. I think I would want to add the infallibility of the Scripture as a fourth aspect of authority, but clearly the Bible itself must be mediated to and interpreted for us by a community of scholars, pastors, parents, and worshipers. Actually, Newbigin goes on in the next few pages to talk about Scripture.
I am particularly impressed with the impossibility-of-the-contrary argument that he makes. Just what kind of authoritative disclosure do most moderns think they want before they will believe? People want some kind of supernatural, direct disclosure, but then don’t realize that it would be worthless to the person next door who would demand the exact same experience. But then, even for the individual who receives such a one-time disclosure the experience would fade and become subject to reinterpretation as time wore on. You’d need one every day just to be sure.
Moreover, this would create an individualistic nightmare, since each person would autonomously interpret his own experience curvitas in se. If God were to make a public supernatural spectacle such that everybody would see it and accept his authority, then we would have similar problems. God would have to make this exact disclosure to each new human being, otherwise we are back to the need for human tradition to pass on the event and its meaning. Furthermore, God would have to say everything that he wanted to say in this grand public event so that there would be no misinterpretation a few days or hours (!) later.
I think Newbigin has a pretty good argument here. Dreaming about alternate ways of God’s disclosing his authority and excusing oneself for not accepting his given authoritative disclosure are ultimately futile and absurd.
Jeff,
Great quote from Newbigin! It is this mediated aspect of much of reality that is so little understood in Evangelicalism and Reformedom.
You might want to check the last paragraph in the quote above; it seems to be you speaking (you reference Newbigin), but it looks like it is still quoted.
Robbie
Robbie,
Thanks. You be right about the blockquote. I done did change it.
Jeff,
Your comment reminded me of one of Jesus’ confrontations with the Pharisees.
The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. But He replied to them, “When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, ‘There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and threatening.’ Do you know how to discern the appearance of the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” And He left them and went away. Mat. 16:1-4
They demanded a sign, even though they already had more testimony from signs than any generation in earth history, confirming your point that even if one had a sign from God he may, for one reason or another, keep demanding more. Jesus’ answer, too, reminds the Pharisees that they are part of an historical tradition in which the Spirit has been at work. They should have been able to discern the work of the Spirit in their own generation, for the “common people” recognized John the Baptist as a prophet and concerning Jesus confessed that he was either John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets, perhaps risen from the dead. For anyone who stood believingly in the tradition of Israel, it was evident that God was doing a special work, but the Pharisees still refused to see and demanded a sign.
Newbigin’s point, as you quoted him is good. I read the book too long ago to remember the larger context, so perhaps he address revelation in creation also, but just for emphasis here, I would want to add that there would be no revelation of the Creator unless it actually oozed out from every atom He created and was implicit in the consciousness of each and every man, from whatever culture or tradition. In the context of a thoroughly revelational world in which man walks in the light of that external revelation according to a consciousness that is also subjectively revelational, the mediated revelation of the Biblical people of God has an immediately authoritative impact on the consciousness of Everyman.
No one in any culture or tradition doubts that the sun shines. In the Creator’s world, the Scripture beams self-evident truth no less brightly.
In that light, Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees, broadly understood, works for any man from any culture in any generation, for we have all been surrounded by the signs of God’s goodness and mercy in the creation. We have all, in one way or another, felt His presence. When we hear His voice in Scripture, it is not a new or foreign sound; it is just a clearer, fuller experience of the same voice that has proclaimed His glory in every second of time throughout His world. When we demand another sign, it is proof of our perversity.